Kenny Wellington

Part of the original Light Of The World line up, Kenny Wellington is one of the UK’s finest musicians & the band’s influence on the Britfunk scene & the subsequent clubland explosion, is in no question…

Alongside Kenny in that original LOTW line up was David ‘Baps’ Baptiste (sax/flute/vocals), Chris Etienne (percussion) Peter ‘Stepper’ Hinds (keyboards), Jean-Paul ‘Bluey’ Maunick (guitar/vocals), Everton McCalla (drums), Neville ‘Breeze’ McKrieth (guitar/vocals) & Paul ‘Tubbs’ Williams (bass). Their string of hits in the early 1980’s gave us soul music with a London accent & their highly acclaimed  ‘Round Trip’ LP made the UK album chart. With DJs like Tony Blackburn, Chris Hill, Robbie Vincent & Steve Walsh championing their sound, LOTW were soon being heard by a much wider audience.

But it wasn’t long before the band split & Kenny, along with Breeze & Baps, formed Beggar & Co, going on to enjoy more chart success with ‘(Somebody) Help Me Out’.  In 1985, Kenny & Breeze reformed LOTW again after working on some remixes of ‘London Town’ & ‘Time’ with DJ/producer John Morales & then briefly again in 1990 for a recording for Chrysalis.

Further configurations of the band followed & by 1999, Kenny had assembled most of the original band, including McKrieth & Baptiste, to co-produce another album ‘Inner Voices’ along with Richard Bull. Nat Augustin was also on board for the recording along with bass player Frank Felix who, after years of live performances with the band, was invited by Kenny to join. Other than featuring on compilation albums, this was the last studio album involving the original LOTW band members.

In 2009 @ our third event, the live performance of Beggar & Co (The Original Light Of The World) saw the cream of the Brit-funk scene from the past three decades line up on stage with Kenny keen to deliver a quality show. Alongside Breeze (LOTW/Beggar & Co), Billy Osborne (LTD & brother of Jeffrey Osbourne), Camelle Hinds (Central Line), Sid Gauld (Incognito), Peter Hinds (LOTW/Atmosfear), sax player Ray Carless, Orphy Robinson (Savanna) & vocalists Noel McKoy, Glen Goldsmith & Ingrid Mansfield Allman from Freeez… they put on one heck of a show, raising the bar for the event as a whole.

Still a regular to Summer Soulstice, in 2016, Kenny released a long awaited solo album entitled ‘Free Spirit’ on Expansion Records which among others features Camelle & the late great Augie Johnson. He once again returned to Summer Soulstice alongside Breeze as the original Beggar & Co line-up. This time they were joined by members of Hi-Tension & Steve Salvari from Central Line, earning Kenny an impressive fourth Soulstice ‘cap’!

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